Aviation consultants project that Lindbergh Field, severely constrained by its solitary, truncated runway, will reach its flight capacity within the next seven to 14 years. Even sooner, Harbor Drive will exceed its vehicle capacity, creating surface gridlock and long delays for passengers trying to get to or from the airport. Even today, Harbor Drive can turn into a parking lot during less than peak travel periods.
San Diego is the only large city in America with a single-runway airfield. Many considerably smaller cities have multiple-runway airports. (Oakland and Cleveland, for example, have four runways each.)
Further hampering Lindbergh Field's capacity is its relatively short runway. At 9,400 feet, the runway is too short for a fully loaded Boeing 747 to take off. (When British Airways operated its San Diego-London service with a Boeing 747, the flight landed in Phoenix to take on a full load of fuel before starting the transAtlantic haul.)
What's more, there is no room at Lindbergh Field to add another full-length runway. At 661 acres, Lindbergh Field is the smallest major airport in the country. Indeed, a Federal Aviation Administration study singled out San Diego's airport as one of the most constricted in the nation, not just because of its limited acreage but also because of the surrounding terrain obstacles. (Point Loma rises sharply off the left wing during a standard jetliner takeoff.)
So, how are the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority and the San Diego Association of Governments responding to Lindbergh Field's rapidly approaching obsolescence? By preparing to pour billions of dollars more into the airport without increasing its flight capacity.
The inescapable reality is that nothing can be done to expand appreciably Lindbergh Field's flight capacity. A single runway can accommodate only a finite number of takeoffs and landings in a day.
In 2006 San Diego County voters decisively rejected a plan for joint civilian-military operations at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station. The region's elected officials scurried from the controversial ballot measure like a herd of frightened sheep, practically guaranteeing its defeat. Instead of exerting leadership, Mayor Jerry Sanders declined even to take a position on the airport issue.
Now, however, Sanders has discovered all of a sudden that Lindbergh Field has a problem. “Our existing airport,” he said recently, “is quickly reaching its potential.”
The Airport Authority and SANDAG, the region's planning agency, have embarked on a study to determine the feasibility of a multibillion-dollar plan for new terminals and a transportation center on the north side of Lindbergh Field. This would provide another access point for the airport and ease the surface strangulation on Harbor Drive. Meanwhile, the Airport Authority is pressing ahead with a separate billion-dollar plan to add 10 more gates at Terminal Two, which will be accessible only via Harbor Drive.
The question no one seems to be asking is whether it makes any sense to heap such large sums of money on an airport that, quite simply, can never meet San Diego's 21st century transportation needs.
